No self-respecting television junkie should be without a digital video recorder (DVR). Thanks to built-in hard drives (and other gear borrowed from the PC arena), these devices let you do addictive things such as pausing and resuming live TV or recording hundreds of hours of programs you've chosen from an on-screen guide.

ReplayTV (along with its better-known rival, TiVo) was one of the first products to spoil us for regular TV, and its new owner, Sonicblue, is hoping the brand will do some spoiling again ... for a select market. If you have broadband and a home network, the Sonicblue ReplayTV 4000 series is the DVR for you.

A big limitation of DVR has been that you couldn't carry a recorded show to another room or to a friend's house unless you dubbed it to tape (or moved your DVR). The ReplayTV 4000 series removes this limitation by letting you send and receive video content via Ethernet. In an in-house network, this means streaming a show recorded on High quality (about 6 Mbps) in real time from one unit to another. Over broadband, this means sending an hour of video in High quality in anywhere from 10 hours to two days, depending on your ISP's outbound speed cap, as well as congestion on the Internet.

This rebroadcast can be used to send home movies to a relative who has a 4000 series unit, or to send people shows they may have missed. The latter has brought some legal trouble for Sonicblue, however, and the 4000 series was released in the middle of a legal battle with the major networks and Hollywood studios, which don't like the idea of people being able to pass along copyrighted content. Nor do they like the Commercial-skip feature, which automatically bypasses commercials in recorded content.

We received two preproduction 4040 devices ($699 list), which we used to test rebroadcast and other features. The entry-level model of the 4000 series, the unit features a 40GB hard drive for recording about 40 hours in Standard, 27 in Medium, and 13.5 in High. Other models go up in capacity and price to the 4320 ($1,999) with two 160GB drives inside. In operation, our 4040s were glitch-free. The only difference in the preproduction units seemed to be a missing clip that keeps the hard drive cable in place.

Setting up the devices couldn't be simpler. Once you make the appropriate A/V connections for your TV and other entertainment equipment (even optical audio and progressive-scan VGA video are supported), just connect an Ethernet cable and hit the power button. The device takes a few moments to find both an IP address through your network's DHCP server and configuration info from ReplayTV. A few simple setup screens (ZIP code, cable provider, and so on) and you have a downloaded program guide. Not including the hard-drive-cable reseating, we had both 4040 units running in 20 minutes. You may need more time for installing just one, however, if you don't have an Ethernet jack or cable handy as we did.

We spent about ten minutes getting comfortable with the remote control and menu interface, which is great, considering the number of features crammed into the sleek, silver DVR. The myriad ReplayTV functions are presented in an intuitive way. Even the new interfaces for setting up in-house or Internet transfers seem evolved in their simplicity of use.

When we set up our second unit, it recognized that another one was on the network. We gave each machine a unique name and were ready to stream. On either device, the Replay menu lets you select from which 4000 series device on your network you wish to play or even delete a recording. We couldn't trip up the streaming, even on High quality. While playing back the beginning of a recording over the network, we were also able to watch a different segment of the same show on the device hosting it.

Sending a file over the Internet requires you to know the 15-digit Internet serial number of another 4000 series DVR so that you can enter it into your Internet Address Book. To receive a file, firewall users will have to open a port and specify which one in the Internet setup screen. Once you do this, however, sending a file is as easy as clicking Send in the Replay menu where you normally select Play (you can simultaneously play and send).

We love that the 4000 series now downloads the 12-day program guide automatically, instead of having to dial up. This is terrific for users of the MyReplayTV.com site, which lets you program your ReplayTV to record. In the past, changes made to a ReplayTV via the Web wouldn't show up at the DVR until it next dialed in.

Sonicblue even throws in something extra. A simple, downloadable program lets you transfer digital images from your PC to the ReplayTV for a slide show. If you have a home network and broadband, the ReplayTV 4000 series is the perfect DVR route to take. Our only criticism is that the low-end model should be a little cheaper, to let most users afford two for their home networks.

Relay TV with ReplayTV

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